Don’t let anyone tell you that 2024 was a bad year for movies. In a year that gave us one of the greatest sci-fi blockbusters of all time, how could it be? But 2024 was more than just watching Dune: Part Two over and over again in IMAX (though we did that, too). It was full of experimental arthouse films like I Saw the TV Glow and The Beast, rip-roaring action flicks like Furiosa, and solemn speculative sci-fi like Civil War. But maybe most importantly, it had Glen Powell doing an impression of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.

Using a highly scientific system, Inverse’s Entertainment team each ranked our favorites of the year, spliced our lists together, and popped out this list of 25 films that we love.

There's a scene in Jeff Fowler's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 where the rising sun washes over its conflicted villain, the Keanu Reeves-voiced Shadow the Hedgehog, recalling an earlier moment of Shadow sitting under the stars with his now long-dead best friend, a young girl named Maria (a mischievous Alyla Browne), whose demise has driven him to anger. It's tragic, wistful, and moving, and just typing this out makes me feel like I'm losing my mind. The video game-based live action hybrid isn't just good, it may very well be great. You could mention it in the same breath as recent animated works like Flow and The Wild Robot — fun and touching action-dramas that could become classics in time — and it wouldn't feel out of place.

There's no getting around how limp and lifeless those first two Sonic movies are — works that take for granted that featuring a familiar character is effort enough. That's all some viewers need: babies, and adults who act like them, and if that sounds bitter and condescending, it's only because I was on the receiving end of online threats and a doxing bounty for not liking the last one of these. What a relief, then, that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 not only works like a charm, but overcomes nearly every flaw of its predecessors, and often tackles them head-on.